Morgana (.hack//) vs Sword Art Online

[zeroharpuia]

Ok so I've just finished watching the most recent episode of SAO and I'm curious as to if you guys think the Malicious AI from .hack can take out SAO.

There can be a couple situations.

1) Morgana's AI spawns in the Game as a Lv 100 Mob that can be killed without data drain and replaces the final boss (for reference her power is greater than cubia's). She keeps the 8 phases and enough scaling bosses to fill the 100 floors. The phases can all be killed without data drain. Morgana's job is to kill 8000 players in the game (including all of the faced ones). How many does she get/when does she kill them all?
-> alternate situation also gives Morgana the ability to create traps like she does in .hack but they follow the mechanics of SAO.

2) Morgana's AI infects SAO's server on the first day of the MMO and Kirito gets a bracelet. Kirito gets 3 months to stop her before the system is corrupted beyond repair and everyone dies. All phases and Cubia are in play along with all of the bosses and mechanics of SAO. Kirito can also form a 12 man party of whoever he can convince to help him. Does the system crash or is Kirito victorious?

[Siriel]

What trap? Morgana was dead by the time of .Hack//Infection. And even in .Hack//Sign, the closest thing to "traps" that she used was data-draining Tsubasa and summoning Skeith.

Anyway...

1) We have no feats for this hypothetical mob-Morgana, but whatever. You didn't mention that Skeith and the other Phases lost their invulnerability, but I'll assume that was an oversight.
SAO is still fucked barring Kayaba interfering.
Skeith has invincibility frames and nobody is ever making it past him with just sword techniques. He hits way, way too hard for everyone to not die at least once, and in SAO death is permanent. And since they have no Twilight Bracelet to protect them, his Data Drain is an instant kill.
And even if they make it pass all of that or you handwave it away, there is still not a thing they can do if Skeith decides that it's Judgment Spam time.
It doesn't help that Kirito becomes considerably weaker when he teams up with other people due to feeling the need to cover for them.
Also, the "not invulnerable" and the "more powerful than Cubia" is kind of a contradiction given that Cubia is invincible.

2) The only way to defeat Cubia is to shatter the Twilight Bracelet. Without the Bracelet, you can't win against the Phases. Since Aura isn't there to create the Daybreak afterward, it's an unwinnable scenario.


As far as the AI Morgana appearing in the regular SAO, that wouldn't work, because Kayaba actually programmed SAO and has an override account unlike the .Hack Admins who only profited from Harald's work. So Kayaba could just shut Morgana down. (We know she was unable to directly act against Harald's system commands.)

[zeroharpuia]

What trap? Morgana was dead by the time of .Hack//Infection. And even in .Hack//Sign, the closest thing to "traps" that she used was data-draining Tsubasa and summoning Skeith.

Anyway...

1) We have no feats for this hypothetical mob-Morgana, but whatever. You didn't mention that Skeith and the other Phases lost their invulnerability, but I'll assume that was an oversight.
SAO is still fucked barring Kayaba interfering.
Skeith has invincibility frames and nobody is ever making it past him with just sword techniques. He hits way, way too hard for everyone to not die at least once, and in SAO death is permanent. And since they have no Twilight Bracelet to protect them, his Data Drain is an instant kill.
And even if they make it pass all of that or you handwave it away, there is still not a thing they can do if Skeith decides that it's Judgment Spam time.
It doesn't help that Kirito becomes considerably weaker when he teams up with other people due to feeling the need to cover for them.
Also, the "not invulnerable" and the "more powerful than Cubia" is kind of a contradiction given that Cubia is invincible.

2) The only way to defeat Cubia is to shatter the Twilight Bracelet. Without the Bracelet, you can't win against the Phases. Since Aura isn't there to create the Daybreak afterward, it's an unwinnable scenario.


As far as the AI Morgana appearing in the regular SAO, that wouldn't work, because Kayaba actually programmed SAO and has an override account unlike the .Hack Admins who only profited from Harald's work. So Kayaba could just shut Morgana down. (We know she was unable to directly act against Harald's system commands.)

For the purposes of the rumble their power levels are extrapolated from their data. This means that because of the fact that they were all defeated by kite and 2 other players, they definitely DO NOT have broken overflow levels. The basis of defeating the phases (and cubia) involves skill based operation with accompanying levels so assume that levels of the phases are equalized with SAO's levels (with some margin for in-game feats). All skills are synthesized into real time as well, invulnerability is gone and so are bullshit 1-hit kills (they don't abide by SAO's system anyway).

As to "Cubia is Invincible" this is obviously not true because, well it lost. To kite, two other players and, a power outage. So its levels are also extrapolated according to the rules of SAO.

As to the second situation I totally forgot about daybreak. For that rumble we'll assume Cubia is fought last. (so we can fight the phases with the bracelet)

[Siriel]

For the purposes of the rumble their power levels are extrapolated from their data. This means that because of the fact that they were all defeated by kite and 2 other players, they definitely DO NOT have broken overflow levels. The basis of defeating the phases (and cubia) involves skill based operation with accompanying levels so assume that levels of the phases are equalized with SAO's levels (with some margin for in-game feats). All skills are synthesized into real time as well, invulnerability is gone and so are bullshit 1-hit kills (they don't abide by SAO's system anyway).

SAO's system clearly allows moves that work outside of player abilities. (See: Kayaba's Over-Assist.)

So Skeith spams Judgment and nobody can do anything to counter that, even if you remove his glitched invincibility and Data Drain.

As to "Cubia is Invincible" this is obviously not true because, well it lost.

So, are you saying that every post-Cubia fight postscene, Kite and the others weren't shown to be exhausted while Cubia left?
The final fight didn't have Kite realize that they just aren't accomplishing anything by fighting Cubia and having to break the Twilight Bracelet because they otherwise have no way to beat it?

[zeroharpuia]

SAO's system clearly allows moves that work outside of player abilities. (See: Kayaba's Over-Assist.)

So Skeith spams Judgment and nobody can do anything to counter that, even if you remove his glitched invincibility and Data Drain.

So, are you saying that every post-Cubia fight postscene, Kite and the others weren't shown to be exhausted while Cubia left?
The final fight didn't have Kite realize that they just aren't accomplishing anything by fighting Cubia and having to break the Twilight Bracelet because they otherwise have no way to beat it?

Hmm I guess you're right, even if we force the phases to abide by SAO's normal rules so many of them have really tough to match feats. Oh well the purpose was to cross the two universes in an even match. Guess I'll have to think of something else.

On the other hand talking about the two was a lot of fun, which is your favorite Siriel? In my opinion if we compare .hack//SIGN (which was one of my fav animes) to SAO, SAO comes out as the better show. There are better things in SIGN such as the music, villain and secondary characters but I think SAO has a better main character, better art, action and better world building. It's close but SAO was more fun to watch.

But if we add the expanded .hack//quadrilogy and .hack//Liminality to SIGN SAO just doesn't have enough yet to compete.

[Siriel]

Depend on what you're looking for. SAO is better in term of romance and action, //Sign is better in character development. (My opinion.)

As for the franchises? I already know where SAO is going, and I don't find it all that good for the most part. Comparatively, Kite is probably my favourite fictional character and while the latter installments in .Hack are...lacking compared to the first series, there are occasional good parts like //XXXX that make up for it.
Music isn't even a contest, .Hack, especially //Sign, has beautiful music.
I'd also put the .Hack world as better built, and the Phases (plus Cubia) beat anything in SAO in term of design, in my opinion.